Young woman impersonates commune leader to defraud land sale, embezzling billions
(Baonghean.vn) - After losing money in the "shanghai" association, Thai Thi Phuong Anh came up with the idea of fraudulently selling land. She provided false information about the land lots and impersonated the commune leaders to "support" the victims, so that they could trust her and appropriate nearly 1.2 billion VND.
Nghe An Provincial People's Court opened a first-instance criminal trial of defendant Thai Thi Phuong Anh (born 1995), residing in Hung Dong commune, Vinh city, for the crime of“Fraudulent appropriation of property”on March 28.
Through a friendship, around June 2021, Anh invited Ms. Tran Thi Th. (born in 1991), residing in Le Mao ward, Vinh city, to contribute capital to do clean food business.
In early September 2021, Anh participated in a rotating savings and credit association and borrowed money from many people, leading to debt, so he came up with the idea of defrauding and appropriating Ms. Th.'s property by inviting her to contribute money to buy land to sell for profit.
Through research, Anh learned that some areas in Hung Dong commune had beautiful plots of land. He randomly selected the plots of land, not knowing who the owners were; all information about the area and selling price of the plots of land was made up by Anh himself.
Then, Anh lied to Ms. Th. that the landowner was selling it cheaply, and if she bought it for investment and then resold it, she would make a profit. To make Ms. Th. believe him, Anh continued to lie that the land investment was supported by his father and the Chairman of Hung Dong Commune, Mr. Tran AT.
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Defendant Thai Thi Phuong Anh was sentenced to 14 years in prison. Photo: Tran Vu |
During the period from September 6 to October 6, 2021, Thai Thi Phuong Anh provided information about contributing money to buy 6 plots of land in Vinh City, appropriating nearly 1.2 billion VND from Ms. Th.
In each scam, to gain the victim's trust, Anh bought a phone sim card, created a Zalo account named "Tan Tran", downloaded the profile and personal images from this person's real account and installed them on the fake account. From the fake account, Anh texted Ms. Th. with the content "rest assured to invest in land with Phuong Anh", "if anything happens, I will stand behind to help", "because the sensitive issue is afraid of affecting work, so only contact via Zalo"... Trusting Anh to "cooperate" in business with the Commune Chairman, Ms. Th. transferred money many times.
At the trial, the defendant admitted to the crime. The defendant said that because of debt, he deceived the victim into selling the land to appropriate money.
Attending the trial, the victim requested the defendant to compensate for all the money he had embezzled. It is known that before the trial took place, the defendant’s family had paid 20 million VND in compensation.
The panel of judges determined that in the case, the defendant had aggravating circumstances such as committing the crime multiple times. However, the defendant also had some mitigating circumstances such as honestly confessing and showing remorse.
Considering the case as a whole, the court sentenced the defendant Thai Thi Phuong Anh to 14 years in prison and ordered her to return the money to the victim.
